Where to Stay in Todos Santos: A Soulful Siesta in Baja's Artist Haven

Your Complete Guide to Where to Stay in Todos Santos (Without Selling a Kidney)

Despite its modest size, Todos Santos offers accommodations that span from bare-bones hostels to properties that might make your credit card spontaneously combust. The town’s rapid evolution has created distinct lodging ecosystems, each with its own peculiar charms and drawbacks. Let’s navigate them with the precision of a local who’s had just enough mezcal to be honest but not enough to exaggerate.

Luxury Stays: When Your Bank Account Isn’t Looking

At the gilded end of where to stay in Todos Santos, you’ll find properties that manage to be simultaneously unpretentious and unexpectedly expensive. Hotel San Cristóbal stands as the area’s premier beachfront indulgence, with 32 rooms starting around $350 per night and oceanfront suites quietly demanding north of $500. Designed by hotelier extraordinaire Liz Lambert, this property has mastered the art of Instagram-worthy minimalism where even the concrete somehow looks expensive. The infinity pool appears to drop directly into the Pacific, creating the perfect backdrop for photos that will make your friends question their life choices.

Newcomer Paradero Todos Santos brings wilderness-luxury to 5.5 acres of agricultural land, with 35 suites that blend into the landscape like they grew there naturally. Starting around $400 nightly, the property emphasizes wellness with an open-air spa and farm-to-table dining that makes “locally sourced” seem like an understatement – you can practically watch your salad growing while sipping your morning coffee. What distinguishes luxury in Todos Santos from Cabo is its understated nature – it’s the kind of luxury where your outdoor shower has better water pressure than your indoor one, and the bartender remembers your name but pretends not to know how many margaritas you had yesterday.

Mid-Range Marvels: The Sweet Spot

The middle tier of Todos Santos accommodations offers the town’s most satisfying price-to-charm ratio, typically ranging from $150-250 per night. The historic Todos Santos Inn occupies an 1870s brick hacienda where the town’s eight antique-filled rooms surround a central courtyard dripping with bougainvillea. At $180-220 nightly, staying here feels like time-traveling to a more elegant era, albeit one that thankfully includes reliable WiFi.

Guaycura Boutique Hotel occupies a restored French colonial building with 14 rooms priced between $170-240. Its rooftop bar offers sunset views that have inspired many a traveler to extend their stay by “just one more night,” while its location puts you within stumbling distance of the town’s best galleries. For more modernist sensibilities, The Hotelito offers six boldly colored rooms that fuse Mexican and Mediterranean design at around $150-190 per night. These mid-range options compare to finding the perfect vintage shirt – not mass-produced, slightly quirky, and eerily feels like it was waiting just for you.

Budget-Friendly Beddowns: For When Your Wallet Needs a Break

Budget accommodations in Todos Santos deliver surprising value, especially for travelers who view their room as simply a place to store luggage between adventures. Casa Bentley offers Gaudi-esque architecture created by an American artist, with garden-surrounded rooms starting around $85 per night. The eccentric design feels like what might happen if Antoni Gaudí and Frida Kahlo collaborated on a fever dream – in the best possible way.

Young travelers and surfers gravitate toward Perro Surfero Hostel, where dorm beds start at $25 and private rooms around $80. The shared kitchen facilitates both budget-friendly meal prep and impromptu international dinner parties. The California Hotel provides simple, clean Mexican-style rooms in the historic center for $60-90 nightly, with a location that compensates for any lack of amenities. Budget stays in Todos Santos are like finding a silk shirt at a thrift store – you can’t believe no one else has claimed it yet, and you feel slightly guilty paying so little for something so lovely.

Vacation Rentals: Your Home Away From Home

The vacation rental market in Todos Santos has exploded faster than a poorly handled jalapeño, with options ranging from $75/night casitas to $400+/night luxury homes. The Las Tunas beachside area has become particularly popular for rentals, offering walkable beach access and just enough distance from town to feel secluded without isolation. Ten minutes south, the Cerritos Beach area attracts surfers with rentals that put them within paddling distance of consistent breaks.

These accommodations offer practical advantages for longer stays: fully-equipped kitchens that allow culinary experimentation with local ingredients, additional space to spread out, and typically better value for families or groups than equivalent hotel options. However, they come with quirks that hotels have engineered away – occasional power outages, water pressure that ranges from “disappointed trickle” to “fire hose,” and WiFi that operates on what locals jokingly call “mañana time.” Always ask hosts about backup generators and water systems before booking, unless you enjoy showering with a garden hose and reading by candlelight.

Town Center vs. Beachfront: The Eternal Dilemma

Unlike many beach destinations where oceanfront location commands premium prices, Todos Santos presents a more complicated decision when deciding where to stay. The town’s main draw remains its historic center, not its beaches – many of which aren’t swimmable due to dangerous undertows and rip currents that could drag an unwary swimmer to South America without so much as a lunch break.

In-town accommodations offer walkability to restaurants, galleries, and shops along cobblestone streets lined with buildings painted in colors that would make a box of crayons jealous. These properties put you within stumbling distance of margarita-supported gallery walks and late-night taco runs. Meanwhile, beachfront options trade convenience for serenity and views – those Instagram-worthy panoramas of where desert dramatically meets sea come with a price tag of isolation. Staying in town is like choosing the bustling table near the kitchen at a restaurant – you’ll see everything happening but might miss the sunset view.

Practical Considerations: The Fine Print

Unlike Cabo’s efficient tourist infrastructure, Todos Santos requires a bit more planning and patience. Having a car is practically essential unless your idea of a perfect vacation involves being stranded in one place. Rental cars from Cabo’s airport typically run $40-60 daily for basic models, with the 90-minute drive north delivering views worth the white-knuckle Mexican highway experience. Taxis exist but operate with pricing that appears to be based on a complex algorithm involving the driver’s mood, the phase of the moon, and your perceived wealth.

Seasonality dramatically affects both pricing and experiences. High season (November-April) brings perfect 75-80°F days, lower humidity, and correspondingly higher prices. Low season (May-October) offers discounts of 20-40% but accompanies them with temperatures climbing into the 90s and humidity that makes it feel like you’re wearing a wet sweater. September and October mark hurricane season, which means accommodations might be cheap if you enjoy the thrill of potential evacuation.

The best properties in Todos Santos book 3-6 months in advance for high season, with holiday periods requiring even longer lead times. The town’s limited ATMs occasionally run out of cash during busy periods, so bringing sufficient pesos prevents awkward restaurant situations. Cell service and WiFi remain stubbornly patchy, especially at beach properties, making Todos Santos ideal for digital detox but frustrating for remote workers. Booking accommodation here resembles trying to get concert tickets – the best places sell out early, and you might need a backup plan if you procrastinate.